


what we never were after all

by Amber



Category: Fitz and the Fool Trilogy - Robin Hobb, Realm of the Elderlings - Robin Hobb
Genre: Blow Jobs, Body Worship, Canon Non-Binary Character, Canonical Past Abuse (alluded to), Clothed Sex, Desperation, Drug-Induced Sex, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Massage, Mildly Dubious Consent, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smut Swap 2019, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-12 03:42:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18438326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber/pseuds/Amber
Summary: They only ever twice.





	1. Sweetsleep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laetificat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laetificat/gifts).



> Thanks Cody for the beta!

The Fool was not particularly surprised to find Fitz had taken almost immediately to the bath — he deserved it, after all. He deserved one night to have anything he wanted. Well, any material thing: the sweet sleep tea to remove his cares, the warm pool in their room to ease his muscles and wash the dirt from his skin, the soft bed. They were all simple comforts, but the sort that Fitz had given up to come on this journey. The sort that had been taken from him, when the Fool returned into his life.

Spark had already described the layout of the room to the Fool when they had been here earlier to leave their packs, so he was aware that there was only one bed. Had not, at the time, known that he would be sharing it. But he could hear Fitz as he waded out of the water, took a towel for cursory drying, and made his way towards it. There was a heavy weariness in his step and voice, and he did not think to ask if his friend was well, handling his own dose of the sweetsleep tea, if he would find the bed— the sort of considerations Fitz always seemed to be juggling, along with awareness of his surroundings, motivations, politics. And yes, as he was currently mumbling, the heavy burdens of grief. But all his balls and burdens had been laid down, and the Fool listened as his body did the same, and was glad.

"Don't fight it, Fitz," the Fool said softly. "Don't question it. For one night, let it all go."

And, ever-trusting, Fitz heeded his words. 

The Fool considered if he wanted to bathe — decided to use the shallow end to wash the grime of travel that was still on his skin, and the heavy paints of Amber's beauty from his face. But he did not spend long at it, and soon he was in a clean shift and stepping lightly to the bed. The sweetsleep had not taken him in its grip quite the way it had Fitz, but it turned the exhaustion of travel into a more manageable tiredness, and he felt perhaps he too could sleep well this night. 

He climbed over Fitz' sprawled form. The mattress was warm, and gave beneath his knees — Fitz' skin was also warm and bare, and the Fool realized belatedly he must not have clothed himself after his bath. Well, it wasn't as if he had to fear his room-mate seeing his nudity, and they'd all but been inside each other's bodies. There were no physical secrets between them these days.

Though he couldn't help but wonder, imagined what that body must look like, after years of a comfortable life with Molly, after age finally started to take its toll despite his Skill's best efforts. The Fool saw with his hands now, and the urge to touch Fitz was immense — he hesitated and then settled for drawing the covers up over him, allowing his knuckles to graze the skin of Fitz' abdomen. Fitz hummed, and turned in his sleep, and flung out an arm over the Fool's body, and drew him closer.

For a shameful moment the Fool drank it in, the warmth and comfort of his touch, before he told himself — no. In sleep, Fitz was doubtlessly thinking of his wife, used to her filling the space alongside him in bed. Gingerly he started to detangle himself, but Fitz only tightened his grip, determined.

"Fool," he murmured, low and husky — so not Molly after all. Fitz knew who he was clinging to, it seemed. 

"Fitz," the Fool returned, not knowing if his friend's eyes were open or closed as their bodies fitted together. It didn't matter. This, too, was a simple thing that Fitz deserved, that the Fool had stolen from his catalyst. Closeness with someone who cared for him. Soft touch. The Fool would allow it.

He accepted the feeling of a rough hand over his back, his waist, but startled when it went as low as his arse. "Bony as ever," Fitz mumbled, sounded amused by it. Squeezed what scant flesh there was, and it was so unlike him but also everything the Fool had quietly wanted for — years, now. Decades. 

Fitz rolled them, then, pressed the Fool into a Rain Wilds mattress that slowly gave beneath his weight, an enveloping softness in counterpoint to the hardness of the man atop him. If he'd wondered at Fitz's body before, now he was certainly being allowed his fill of it, as it pressed naked over him. The Fool longed to explore — but this wasn't about him. 

A soft grunt, and Fitz grappled at him, rolled his hips — ah, and there was another hardness, his cock filling thick. Even with the Fool's shift and leggings in the way he could feel the heat of it against his hip and thigh, and he parted his legs in invitation.

They shouldn't. He shouldn't. He knew — truly, that he shouldn't allow this. Fitz wanted it, that much was certain — with no inhibitions to hold him back it was clear that he wanted this, and he was not thinking of his late wife, whispered the Fool's name hoarsely against his neck. "Beloved," and despite the circumstances, the Fool felt as though it were true, felt as Beloved as he ever had as a child before the monstrous of Clerres had taught him self-reliance. Of course he wanted this too. Of course he did.

It would ruin both of them.

But much as Fitz had become all selfishness with the soporific, so The Fool found it difficult to truly concern himself with the futures that sprang from this moment, from Fitz' hands as they pawed at his clothes clumsily and to little avail. Bit at his neck, his shoulder, sharp bright spots of delicious pain. 

The Fool did not try to take his own pleasure, did not even think of it beyond the pleasure he found in Fitz working brutally over him, almost bestial in his breath and movement. He helped to get his shift up and leggings down, enough that Fitz's thick cock found a home between his legs, and the Fool squeezed his bare thighs tight around it. Spat in his own hand and used that as slick to help ease the friction, and when his clever fingers stroked Fitz' cock he received in return the most heartfelt groans.

He dared to put his hands then to Fitz' arse, and cupped the swell of it, feeling the hair and muscle there. "Yes," he urged him, "Yes, that's it." 

They moved together, with ease and familiarity. It was the kind of synchronicity found in riders and steeds who have traversed many miles together; Fitz would roll his hips, and the Fool would meet him, squeezing his thighs together, and then when Fitz pressed back into his hands he would give firm pressure there, too, or an encouraging smack, more noise than injury.

Fitz kissed hungrily at his neck, his collar. Tried to get past the restriction of his shift and tugged at the fabric with his teeth to stretch it. He had started to sweat and heave, and his noises came closer together, low heedless sounds. The Fool treasured each of them.

There were other things he would have liked to have done — to have explored more of Fitz' rough body, each scar he had taken in service to the Fool's dreams and needs. Used his mouth to give Fitz pleasure, or perhaps even allowed a true copulation instead of this quick facsimile. There were plenty of ways he had imagined taking Fitz apart over the years. But this time, their first time, all he could do was hold him. Clutch him close as Fitz shuddered his way to release, spurted hot between the Fool's legs with a rough animal noise, and then collapsed atop him.

They breathed together for some time, until Fitz' breathing slowed back to sleep. The Fool resisted the urge to succumb to the same and instead weaseled his way free of Fitz' body. Made his way back to the pool to clean himself — and to finish himself, too, a little furtive to be doing so in such a way but aware he could not return to the bed without taking care of the wild need risen up in him.

The Fool came with gritted teeth, loose hair curtained around his face, lean body bowed. After, he found an unsoiled nightshirt in his half-unpacked things — Spark always put them in the same place for him, folded them in the same way, making navigating the pack much easier — and then crawled back into the bed and curled up alongside Fitz, this time truly to sleep. He imagined that in the morning he might regret this, if they spoke of it at all, but he could not bring himself to do so now.


	2. Resolve

There existed touches to stimulate a man, and touches to comfort and calm him, and of these Fitz found himself using the second set. The Fool was still agitated from their conversation about Cleres, his wild outbursts and fainting fit, but Fitz massaged first his slender hands with his own, and then a forearm, bared from the loose sleeves of the comfortable tunic he wore when they took repose away from the eyes of the crew. 

All this was barely any further than the press of hands between old friends, but then Fitz rubbed warm across his chest and the Fool arched into it. Cupped and squeezed his neck in the place where the muscles junctured, made them loosen aching knots and caused him to groan. It was not an unfamiliar sound, but Fitz had new context for it now, and it stirred in him a rush of heat.

"Ah, Fitz," the Fool breathed softly, his milky eyes closed. There was still something atremble about him, but he did not immediately revert to Amber's posture to delineate some space between them, just catted into Fitz' touch. 

"Lie down on the bed," Fitz said, an old creak of nerves in his voice. The Fool didn't so much as hesitate — in this, as in so many things, he seemed to understand what Fitz meant to do better than perhaps Fitz himself did. The Fool arranged himself on the narrow bunk of their cabin, face down, and Fitz climbed over him.

"I shouldn't allow this," he admitted a little dazedly, "But you do feel so very lovely."

Fitz snorted. "Well, as we're doing it—" he took a moment to consider well what he couldn't undo, but finished his sentence with nothing more than a slight pause, covered by rearrangement of his legs, "I'd do a better job of it if you took off your shirt."

At that, the Fool tensed beneath the first smoothing of Fitz's hands. They both knew how sensitive he could be about his back, even if by now Fitz had seen it plenty of times. Doubtless that was his hesitation, so Fitz let him work through it in his own time, rubbed his hands idly over the cloth in the meantime. It served a good demonstration of his point. Enough, apparently, that the Fool came to agree, and he twisted to remove the garment. He was still, somehow, elegant in all things. Fitz wondered how much effort that took.

The Fool's back was still a knotted mess of scarring, though far less ghastly now that it was no longer riddled with terrible infections. Fitz passed a gentle hand over one full pink starburst alongside his spine, where he had drawn the poison out with the Skill back in Buck. How long ago that seemed. How short a time it had been. 

But he would not think of Bee and Molly and Withywoods now. He would put them aside, as he had learned to do if he wanted to take anything from life but the ashes of grief. His focus tonight was the Fool. At first he truly did simply ease panic-tensed muscles, and encouraged the Fool to relax, physically at least, drew his hands heavy along the planes of his skin. And the Fool responded marvelously, gave long exhales of pleasured satisfaction. "Like this it's hard to think of anything but your touch," he admitted somewhat ruefully, voice deepened a touch, and Fitz didn't quite smile but could feel a spark of something smug. While he tried far harder these days to respect the Fool's boundaries, he had always taken a bit of satisfaction if he discovered something new of him, turned those tables. 

"That's the point," he said gruffly, and then sat back, lifted his weight. "Turn over now."

The Fool wriggled his whole body like a snake to get onto his back, but then immediately went limp again. Looked up at Fitz with a wan smile. "You don't have to do this, you know."

"No? So I should make you relive those terrible memories and then simply leave you to wallow in them?" Though, if he were honest with himself, he was certainly tempted to do exactly that. It was rare he forced a confrontation over that sort of thing, understood well the value of solitude for healing. "Besides. I took something from you back in Kelsingra. I want to — give it back."

The Fool's eyes widened infinitesimally, but he kept his expression casual. "Strange. I have no memory of this robbery."

"Fool," Fitz said sternly, "Don't make this more difficult than it needs to be."

The shame that then washed over his friend's face shamed him in turn. "I didn't think you remembered," the Fool admitted. "Or, if you did, I thought maybe you wanted to pretend you didn't. But you're right, I took advantage, in letting you—"

"No," Fitz said immediately. Nearly covered the Fool's narrow mouth so he could have that sentence stopped and stoppered. "Neither of us were in our right minds. But now we are."

"Well," the Fool reflected. "Give or take." He still looked up at Fitz with a touch of concern to his countenance, perhaps even fear. But Fitz didn't bother with wondering if he'd misjudged this, just leaned down and pressed their mouths together lightly.

He could feel the soft inhale of the Fool's breath over his lips, and then they went pliant beneath him, and then, finally, the Fool reached up a hand to cup the back of Fitz' neck and kissed back. His mouth was not exactly honey sweet, but there was a hunger to it that Fitz liked, and he kissed well and capably. 

"Good," said Fitz when he broke back. "Now you're getting it."

"You don't have to — repay me," the Fool disagreed stubbornly, gaze filled with more annoyance that Fitz felt was really warranted after such a good kiss. "If anything I considered myself to be repaying you, given how much I've asked of you over the years, with so little time to yourself for peace. Again and again, Fitz, I drag you into conflict."

"So you don't actually want this," Fitz said heavily, though there was suspicion in his tone. He had never forgotten that the Fool loved him, had certainly, at times in his youth, been surprised to discover that his friend was not some sexless tumbling creature, tormented himself imagining who the Fool was with his partners.

"That's not what I said," the Fool rebuked him. "Just that I don't want it to be about payment, or exchange."

Fitz considered that. "You say there's nothing to repay. And certainly you seem well recovered from talk of — your past. But I still... I haven't been able to stop thinking of it, Fool. Your body beneath mine. What it could be like between us. I know that should be a shameful thing but at this point I feel far too past shame to care."

Unexpectedly, the Fool laughed. "Well," he reflected, "I certainly never expected to hear you say that." And with a smile, he reached up and brushed a hand across Fitz's cheek, the beard growing in. "But I'm hardy about to refuse. There are so many wondrous things in our lives again, but too few small comforts."

"You are the most wondrous of them all," Fitz declared, a little stupidly, and the Fool laughed again in pained delight and leaned up to demand another kiss.

For a little while that was all there was between them: the old familiarity with each other's bodies had been transformed into a newness of kissing, and they explored it together as thoroughly as young lovers. Fitz did not think of Starling, or Molly — or if he did, it was only in brief, uncontrollable flashes that he put to the back of his mind, for once not dwelling on the past.

Fitz broke away from the Fool's mouth gradually, by degrees. Explored his jaw and then returned, sucked affection down the pale line of his neck and finished with another kiss to his lips. The Fool smiled and smiled, and that was good in its own right, to see him taking joy in something, especially in the shadow of their earlier conversation and his extreme reaction to it. 

"I have you," Fitz promised the line of his shoulder.

"Not yet," said the Fool, and he sounded quite pleased with himself. "But you may." Fitz wasn't sure whether that was permission or teasing prediction. He bit, lightly, in reprimand, and the Fool groaned in pleasure at his teeth. A good reaction, so Fitz did it again, left several bites across the span of his collar. The sensitive places drew out better reactions, so he explored for them with lips and tongue and then bit again, and again, until a mark bloomed on the Fool's pale skin.

It felt right, to look at it. They had marked each other in so many ways. Implicit and explicit. Mental and physical. Fitz bit at him again, self-satisfied and a little feral.

"I didn't give you any pleasure, last time," he told the Fool. "I mean to make amends for that."

"You would be surprised how much pleasure you gave me," the Fool promised him, petting fingers through his grief-short hair.

"Not as deliberately as I'd like," Fitz returned stuffily, and sunk further down the bed. Drew the Fool's leggings down with him, and pressed his mouth between his legs. He did this for Molly, of course, and it didn't feel that different now, but there still was something transgressive and intimate about it. Fitz pinned the Fool's hips with broad hands and applied his mouth to a place kept so private for so many years that he had considered it in detail more than once before now. Worked there steadily, guided by the Fool's increasing noise — ah, the crew will give them looks again, later. This time they'll have earnt them.

Fitz refused to be swayed from his task no matter how much the Fool pulled his hair or called him sweet names or said, exasperated, "At least turn around so I can return the favour." Getting sucked would be too much of a distraction — the Fool was too delicate an instrument for anything less than his full and complete attention. Fitz devoted himself, loyally, to the use of his mouth, until finally the Fool came messily apart on the bed.

Fitz sat up, unable to stop himself smirking just a tad as he swallowed to clear his mouth and then wiped any lingering wetness from his beard. "Scoundrel," the Fool accused him weakly, sprawled limp and dazed.

"Too old to be a proper scoundrel," Fitz laughed, and reached down to untie his laces and free his aching erection. 

A brief stroke, and the Fool huffed: "Are you touching yourself? You're not robbing me of that twice," and reached for him instead. And Fitz let him, laid out alongside him and allowed the Fool to pleasure him in return, amidst newly salty kisses, until he too fell over the edge and almost immediately into an exhausted sleep.

When he woke, the Fool was still there, though he'd clothed himself at some point and cleaned them both of any remaining fluids. Climbed into Fitz' arms to be held, which seemed to have gone a long way to helping him sleep peacefully — half pressed beneath Fitz' body, he did not curl in on himself protectively, and his face was lax and uncreased. It made Fitz grateful, for whatever this was that had overtaken them or passed between them. If he could alleviate the Fool's burdens he would judge that time well spent — and he suspected his old friend felt the same.


End file.
